Leviticus 26
26
The Reward of Obedience. 1#This chapter concludes the revelation of laws at Mount Sinai (cf. v. 46). Blessings and curses are also found at the end of Deuteronomy’s law collection (Dt 28). Similar lists of blessings and curses appear in the conclusions of ancient Near Eastern treaties. Do not make idols for yourselves. You shall not erect a carved image or a sacred stone for yourselves, nor shall you set up a carved stone for worship in your land;#Lv 19:4; Nm 33:52. for I, the Lord, am your God. 2Keep my sabbaths,#Lv 23:3. and reverence my sanctuary. I am the Lord.
3#The blessings are concerned with the well-being of the nation and its land and involve agricultural bounty, national security, military success and population growth. #Dt 28:1–69. If you live in accordance with my statutes and are careful to observe my commandments, 4I will give you your rains in due season, so that the land will yield its crops, and the trees their fruit;#Dt 11:14; Ps 85:13; Ez 34:26–27. 5your threshing will last till vintage time, and your vintage till the time for sowing, and you will eat your fill of food, and live securely in your land.#Lv 25:18–19; Dt 12:10. 6I will establish peace in the land, and you will lie down to rest with no one to cause you anxiety. I will rid the country of ravenous beasts, and no sword shall sweep across your land. 7You will rout your enemies, and they shall fall before your sword. 8Five of you will put a hundred of your foes to flight, and a hundred of you will put to flight ten thousand, till your enemies fall before your sword.#Dt 32:30; Jos 23:10. 9I will look with favor upon you, and make you fruitful and numerous,#Gn 1:28; Ex 1:7. as I carry out my covenant with you. 10You shall eat the oldest stored harvest, and have to discard it to make room for the new.#Lv 25:22. 11#Ex 29:45; Ez 37:26–28; 2 Cor 6:16. I will set my tabernacle in your midst, and will not loathe you. 12Ever present in your midst, I will be your God, and you will be my people; 13I, the Lord, am your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt to be their slaves no more, breaking the bars of your yoke and making you walk erect.#Ez 34:27; Na 1:13.
The Punishment of Disobedience.#To encourage obedience, the list of punishments is longer than the blessings (cf. a similar proportion in Dt 28). The punishments are presented in waves (vv. 14–17, 18–20, 21–22, 23–26, 27–39), one group following another if the people do not return to obedience. Punishments involve sickness, pestilence, agricultural failure and famine, attack of wild animals, death of the people’s children, destruction of illicit and even licit cults, military defeat, panic, and exile. 14#Dt 28:15–69. But if you do not heed me and do not keep all these commandments, 15if you reject my statutes and loathe my decrees, refusing to obey all my commandments and breaking my covenant, 16then I, in turn, will do this to you: I will bring terror upon you—with consumption and fever to dim the eyes and sap the life. You will sow your seed in vain, for your enemies will consume the crop. 17I will turn against you, and you will be beaten down before your enemies#1 Kgs 8:33–34. and your foes will lord it over you. You will flee though no one pursues you.
18If even after this you do not obey me, I will increase the chastisement for your sins sevenfold,#Ps 79:12; Prv 6:31. 19to break your proud strength. I will make the sky above you as hard as iron, and your soil as hard as bronze, 20so that your strength will be spent in vain; your land will bear no crops, and its trees no fruit.
21If then you continue hostile, unwilling to obey me, I will multiply my blows sevenfold, as your sins deserve. 22I will unleash wild beasts against you, to rob you of your children and wipe out your livestock, till your population dwindles away and your roads become deserted.
23If, with all this, you still do not accept my discipline and continue hostile to me, 24#Jer 2:30; Ez 5:17; 14:17. I, too, will continue to be hostile to you and I, for my part, will smite you for your sins sevenfold. 25I will bring against you the sword, the avenger of my covenant. Though you then huddle together in your cities, I will send pestilence among you, till you are delivered to the enemy. 26When I break your staff of bread, ten women will need but one oven for baking your bread, and they shall dole it out to you by weight;#Is 9:19; Ez 4:16; 5:16; 14:13; Mi 6:14. and though you eat, you shall not be satisfied.
27If, despite all this, you disobey and continue hostile to me, 28I will continue in my hostile rage toward you, and I myself will discipline you for your sins sevenfold, 29till you begin to eat the flesh of your own sons and daughters.#Lam 2:20. 30I will demolish your high places, overthrow your incense stands, and cast your corpses upon the corpses of your idols.#2 Chr 14:5; 34:3–4, 7; Ez 6:3–6. In my loathing of you, 31I will lay waste your cities and desolate your sanctuaries, refusing your sweet-smelling offerings. 32So devastated will I leave the land that your enemies who come to live there will stand aghast at the sight of it.#1 Kgs 9:8; Jer 9:11; 18:16; 19:8; 25:18. 33And you I will scatter among the nations#Ps 44:12; Jer 15:7; Ez 6:8. at the point of my drawn sword, leaving your countryside desolate and your cities deserted. 34Then shall the land, during the time it lies waste, make up its lost sabbaths, while you are in the land of your enemies; then shall the land have rest and make up for its sabbaths#Lv 25:2; 2 Chr 36:21. 35during all the time that it lies desolate, enjoying the rest that you would not let it have on your sabbaths when you lived there.
36Those of you who survive in the lands of their enemies, I will make so fainthearted that the sound of a driven leaf will pursue them, and they shall run as if from the sword, and fall though no one pursues them; 37stumbling over one another as if to escape a sword, while no one is after them—so helpless will you be to take a stand against your foes! 38You shall perish among the nations, swallowed up in your enemies’ country. 39Those of you who survive will waste away in the lands of their enemies, for their own and their ancestors’ guilt.#Ez 4:17; 24:23; 33:10.
40#Even though the people may be severely punished, God will remember the covenant when the people repent. They will confess#Lv 16:21; Nm 5:7; Neh 1:6. their iniquity and the iniquity of their ancestors in their treachery against me and in their continued hostility toward me, 41so that I, too, had to be hostile to them and bring them into their enemies’ land. Then, when their uncircumcised hearts are humbled and they make amends for their iniquity, 42I will remember my covenant with Jacob, and also my covenant with Isaac; and also my covenant with Abraham I will remember.#Ex 6:5; 2 Kgs 13:23; Ps 106:45; Ez 16:60. The land, too, I will remember. 43The land will be forsaken by them, that in its desolation without them, it may make up its sabbaths, and that they, too, may make good the debt of their guilt for having spurned my decrees and loathed my statutes. 44Yet even so, even while they are in their enemies’ land, I will not reject or loathe them to the point of wiping them out, thus making void my covenant with them; for I, the Lord, am their God. 45I will remember for them the covenant I made with their forebears, whom I brought out of the land of Egypt before the eyes of the nations,#Ex 12:51. that I might be their God. I am the Lord.
46These are the statutes, decrees and laws which the Lord established between himself and the Israelites through Moses on Mount Sinai.#Lv 7:38; Nm 36:13.
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Leviticus 26: NABRE
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Leviticus 26
26
Blessings for Obedience
1“ ‘You#Plural throughout the entire chapter shall not make for yourselves idols and divine images, and you shall not raise up stone pillars for yourselves, and you shall not put a sculptured stone in your land in order to#Or “to” worship before it, because I am Yahweh your God.
2“ ‘You shall keep my Sabbaths, and you shall revere my sanctuary; I am Yahweh.
3“ ‘If you walk in my statutes and you keep my commands and you do them, 4then#Or “and” I will give you rains in their time, and the land shall give its produce, and the trees of the field shall give their fruit. 5And for you the threshing season shall overtake the grape harvest, and the grape harvest shall overtake the sowing, and you shall eat your food to your fill#Literally “to contentment” and you shall live securely#Literally “with confidence” in your land. 6And I will give peace in the land, and you shall lie down, and there shall not be anybody who makes you afraid,#Literally “who makes afraid” or “making afraid” and I will remove harmful animals from the land, and no sword shall pass through your land.#Literally “a sword shall not pass through in your land” 7And you shall pursue your enemies, and they shall fall by the sword before you.#Literally “to your faces” 8And five of#Hebrew “from” you shall pursue a hundred, and a hundred of#Hebrew “from” you shall pursue a myriad;#Or “ten thousand” and your enemies shall fall by the sword before you.#Literally “to your faces” 9And I will turn to you, and I will make you fruitful, and I will make you numerous; and I will keep my covenant with you. 10And you shall eat old grain,#Literally “old what is stale” and you shall clear away the old before the new.#Literally “old from the faces of new you shall bring out” 11And I will put my dwelling place in your midst, and my inner self#Or “soul” shall not abhor you. 12And I will walk about in your midst, and I shall be your God,#Or “as a God for you” and you shall be my people.#Or “as a people for me” 13I am Yahweh, your God who brought you out from the land of Egypt, from being their slaves; and I broke the bars of your yoke, and I caused you to walk erectly.
Punishment for Disobedience
14“ ‘But#Or “And” if you do not listen to me and you do not carry out#Or “you do not do” or “you do not observe” or “you do not perform” all these commands, 15and if you reject my statutes and if your inner self#Or “soul” abhors my regulations, to not carry out#Or “do” or “observe” or “perform” all my commands by your breaking my covenant, 16I in turn#Literally “also” or “indeed” will do this to you: then#Or “and” I will summon onto you horror, the wasting disease, and the fever that wastes eyes and that drains away life; and you shall sow your seed in vain,#Literally “for the emptiness” and your enemies shall eat it. 17And I will set my face against you, and you shall be defeated before#Literally “to the faces of” your enemies; and your haters shall rule over you, and you shall flee away, but#Or “and” there shall not be anybody who is pursuing#Literally “who pursues” or “pursuing” you.
18“ ‘And if in spite of these things you do not listen to me, then#Or “and” I will continue to discipline you seven times for your sins. 19And I will break the pride of your strength; and I will make your heaven like iron#Or “iron ore” and your land like copper. 20And your strength shall be consumed in vain;#Literally “to the emptiness” and your land shall not give its produce, and the land’s trees shall not give their fruit.
21“ ‘And if you go against me in hostility and you are not willing to listen to me, then#Or “and” I will add a plague onto you seven times according to your sins. 22And I will send wild animals#Literally “the animals of the field” out among you, and they shall make you childless, and they shall cut down your domestic animals, and they shall make you fewer; and your roads shall be desolate.
23“ ‘And if you do not accept correction from#Hebrew “for” or “to” me through these things, but#Or “and” you go against me in hostility, 24then#Or “and” I myself#Emphatic personal pronoun will also go against you in hostility, and I myself#Emphatic personal pronoun also will strike you seven times for your sins. 25And I will bring upon you a sword that seeks vengeance for the covenant, and you shall be gathered to your cities; and I will send a plague in your midst, and you shall be given into the hand of an enemy. 26At my breaking the supply#Literally “staff” of bread#Or “food” for you, then#Or “and” ten women shall bake your bread in one oven, and they shall return your bread by weight; and you shall eat it, and you shall not be satisfied.
27“ ‘And if through this you do not listen to me and you go against me in hostility, 28then#Or “and” I will go against you in hostile anger, and also#Or “surely” I myself#Emphatic personal pronoun will discipline you seven times for your sins. 29And you shall eat the flesh of your sons; and the flesh of your daughters you shall eat. 30And I will destroy your high places, and I will cut down your incense altars, and I will place your corpses on your idols’ corpses; and my inner self#Or “soul” shall abhor you. 31And I will lay your cities in ruins, and I will lay waste your sanctuaries; and I shall not smell your sacrifices’#Implied by the use of the same phraseology in regard to the sacrifices in the early chapters of the book appeasing fragrance. 32And I myself#Emphatic personal pronoun will lay waste the land, and your enemies who are living in it shall be appalled over it. 33And I will scatter you among the nations, and I will draw a sword behind you; and your land shall be a desolation, and your cities shall be a ruin. 34Then the land shall enjoy its Sabbaths all the days of its lying desolate, and you shall be in the land of your enemies; then the land shall rest, and it shall enjoy its Sabbaths. 35All the days of its lying desolate it shall rest for the time#Implied by context that it had not rested during your Sabbaths while you were living on it. 36As for#Or “And” the ones who remain among you, I will bring#Or “and I will bring” fearfulness in their hearts in the land of their enemies; and a sound of a windblown leaf shall pursue them, and they shall flee like flight before#Literally “of” a sword, and they shall fall, but#Or “and” there shall not be a pursuer. 37And they shall stumble over one another#Literally “a man on his brother” as from before#Literally “from the faces of” a sword, but#Or “and” there shall not be a pursuer; and you shall have no resistance#Literally “it shall not be for you resistance” before#Literally “to the faces of” your enemies. 38And you shall perish among the nations, and the land of your enemies shall eat you. 39And because of their guilt, the ones among you who remain shall decay in the land of their enemies; and also because of the iniquities of their ancestors,#Or “fathers” they shall decay with them.
40“ ‘But#Or “And” when they confess their guilt and the guilt of their ancestors#Or “fathers” in their infidelity that they displayed against me, and moreover that they went against me in hostility— 41I myself#Emphatic personal pronoun also#Or “surely” went against them in hostility, and I brought them into the land of their enemies—or if then their uncircumcised heart is humbled and then they pay for their guilt, 42I will remember#Or “and I will remember” my covenant with Jacob; and I will remember also my covenant with Isaac and also my covenant with Abraham, and I will remember the land. 43And the land shall be deserted by them, and it shall enjoy its Sabbaths in its being desolate from them, and they themselves#Emphatic personal pronoun must pay for their guilt, simply because#Literally “because and in because” they rejected my regulations, and their inner self#Or “soul” abhorred my statutes. 44And in spite of#Literally “also even” or “moreover also” or “moreover even” this, when they are#Literally “in their being” in the land of their enemies I will not reject them, and I will not abhor them to destroy them, to break my covenant with them, because I am Yahweh their God. 45And I will remember the first covenant for them#Or “on behalf of them” or “on their behalf”—whom I brought out from the land of Egypt in the sight of#Literally “to the eyes of” or “for the eyes of” the nations to be their God.#Literally “to be for them for God” or “to be for them as a God” I am Yahweh.’ ”
46These are the rules and the regulations and the laws that Yahweh gave between himself and the Israelites#Literally “sons/children of Israel” on Mount Sinai#Literally “the mountain of Sinai” through#Literally “in/by the hand of” Moses.
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